Here it is- my long awaited blog post. What to say? I’ve been here for two weeks, and I’ve done SO MUCH already it seems. So what exactly am I doing here? For those of you that don’t know, I’m a project supervisor for Amigos de las Americas, a program that I volunteered for in high school. I might or might not have copied this description from the Amigos website…
“Amigos de las Américas (AMIGOS) builds partnerships to empower young leaders, advance community development and strengthen multicultural understanding in the Americas.AMIGOS operates quality, youth-led programs throughout the Americas which improve the health and well-being of millions. Supported by a vigorous network of Pan-American chapters and partner agencies and a sound financial base, youth from diverse backgrounds and from throughout the Americas challenge themselves and expand their world view by participating in self-directed, meaningful service with communities different from their own.”
So there you go! Volunteers live with host families in small communities in groups of two or three per community. They spend their time in community running day camps about health and environmental topics for kids, and also collaborating with members of their town on a larger community improvement project. SO each partnership has a supervisor that comes by once a week to spend the night and make sure they’re doing ok, doing their projects well, etc. and that is ME! I travel between four communities every week and spend one night in each.
These last two weeks have been preparation for sending our volunteers out to community. I got here Saturday the 11th, left to survey my communities on Wednesday the 15th, got back to staff house in Oaxaca on Sunday the 19th, and volunteers arrived this past Tuesday the 21st! It’s been a total whirlwind I did some counting on Friday, and realized I had slept in 8 different places in the previous two weeks.
Ok. Maybe I will write more later. For now I will assuage you guys with this update and a picture or two if I can figure that out.
